She started typing Owen’s story, asking questions when she needed clarification. Occasionally he added details or made corrections. Together they created a picture to help her audience stand in her clients’ boots as they hobbled into their offices on a rainy day.
Carly had always approached Horses for Heroes’ work from a clinical treatment perspective. For Owen and vets like him, this agency was a lifeline. Being entrenched in numbers and paperwork over the last year, she’d forgotten that simple fact. “Thank you for helping me connect too.”
The front office door creaked open. Carly quit typing and turned as Holly stepped inside. The petite woman glanced at Carly and Owen huddled together at her desk and blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re not,” Carly blurted out, her face probably equally red as she scooted her chair away from Owen before she introduced him to her assistant. “Owen’s helping me revamp my presentation for the retired teachers this afternoon.”
Not the least bit uncomfortable, Owen greeted Holly with a warm smile, a polite nod, and a “pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Then he returned his attention to Carly and the computer. “Do you have a design plan for the new offices?”
Carly shook her head. “The board refuses to approve any expenditures, even for preliminary designs, until we have a campaign underway and determine its feasibility.”
“That still burns me up,” Holly said, from behind her metal desk across the room. “All Carly asked for was a thousand dollars. She’d talked to TWU and wanted to hold a contest for architect majors. Students would submit a design after having it reviewed by a professor. The board would determine the winner, who’d receive a thousand-dollar scholarship, and would work with us during construction, but the board said no.”
“Their decision seems short-sighted considering people are more likely to donate when they can see plans or a model of what they’re working toward,” Owen said.
“That’s our board for you,” Holly snapped.
As Carly and Owen continued retooling her presentation, instead of being miffed at him taking over, she found herself grateful. No matter what she did, fundraising made her feel as if she was a vendor peddling her wares on the street corner trying to catch people’s attention as they scurried past her.
When they reached the slide on the VA study estimating an average of twenty-two veterans committed suicide every day, Carly said, “I always highlight this statistic. Most people have no idea how many veterans become so desperate they give up on life.”
Owen’s eyes clouded with grief, he showed her a picture on his phone. A group of soldiers in dusty fatigues, arms crossed over their broad chests, shades perched on their noses, combat boot-clad feet braced shoulder-width apart stood in the desert. “Here are some of my unit buddies the last time I was deployed. They’re some of the best men and women on God’s earth. They would’ve given their life to save my ass without hesitation. Tomorrow, all of them plus ten more could be gone because of suicide.”
The reality of the statistics in terms of living, breathing faces of men and women who’d served their country, twisted Carly’s insides into a painful knot.
“You have to add that picture,” Holly said, her voice cracking, as she stood filing papers in the cabinet beside her desk.
The contact broken, Carly said, “Owen, do you mind?”
He shook his head and emailed her the photo for her to add to her statistics slide.
As Carly and Owen continued tweaking the remainder of her program, Holly worked at her desk answering the phone and seeing to the day-to-day necessities while occasionally adding a comment.
When Sarah Hampton arrived with a donation of bridles and horse blankets she and her husband no longer needed, Holly and the donor took the items to the barn. Carly turned to Owen. “How do you suggest I wrap this up?”
Owen ran his knuckles over the stubble on his chin and his gaze moved around the office, noting the veterans’ pictures on the walls. “I remember a story your mom told at career day when we were freshmen. She talked about a vet whose picture hung above her desk.”
Carly remembered Timothy Wolford well. She glanced toward the far wall where her mother’s desk had once resided, and the picture of the Marine still hung.
“He was the first client I worked with as a sidewalker. I remember how proud I was to be part of his team. Mom would say whenever she grew weary of fundraising or paperwork, she gazed at Tim’s picture and remembered what he told her. He said if it hadn’t been for Horses for Heroes, he wouldn’t be alive.”
One day after his hippotherapy session, Tim and her mother sat in her office having coffee and chatting. He told her he’d been sitting at the kitchen table in his apartment staring at the prescription of pain pills he’d picked up at the pharmacy. “He’d decided the life he had wasn’t worth living. As he reached for the medicine bottle, his phone rang. It was Mom saying his application had been accepted, and she wanted to schedule his first session.”
Owen nodded. “Your mom always said freedom isn’t free, and vets pay most of the price. She said the rest of us should pay our fair share by making sure programs like this can help soldiers when they return home.”
“She said remembering how much protecting our freedom cost veterans put everything back in perspective and kept her going,” Carly said.
“There’s your ending.”
“I knew the paperwork and day-to-day operations had worn me down, but I didn’t realize how distant I’d become from why we do this.”
“You were mucking out the stall but weren’t getting to ride the horse.”
“Excuse me?”
“No one enjoys cleaning out a horse stall, but if you want to ride the horse that’s what you’ve got to do to get the payoff.”
She thought for a minute. Owen was right. The ride filled an owner’s soul and made the unpleasantness of shoveling manure worth it.
